


i am easy to find

by faradays



Series: the secret history [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Rhaegar Lives, and is a useless prick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:09:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22028353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faradays/pseuds/faradays
Summary: The way Jon sees it, if he's not a dragon by now, then surely it means he never will be.'Don't be stupid,' says Alayne, but without any real bite behind it. She's been made docile by the baking sun, lying on her back and her arm slung over her eyes. 'Of course you are. You're a Targaryen. That's sort of the whole point.'Prince Jon Targaryen and his mother's ward, the bastard Alayne Stone, come of age in the court of the Mad King.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Series: the secret history [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585618
Comments: 58
Kudos: 271





	1. part i

The way Jon sees it, if he's not a dragon by now, then surely it means he never will be.

'Don't be stupid,' says Alayne, but without any real bite behind it. She's been made docile by the baking sun, lying on her back and her arm slung over her eyes. 'Of course you are. You're a Targaryen. That's sort of the whole point.'

He wants to believe her, and why shouldn't he? At ten-and-one, Alayne is already the cleverest of them all, running rings around the other children at lessons, though lately she's been acting as though this isn't true. One minute she'll be trouncing the rest of them in sums or geography or whatever, then Elia will come in to inspect their work, and suddenly she'll wipe all spark of intelligence from her face. He can actually see it happen, this choice she makes as she's making it, like flipping over a page in a book to hide the secret on the other side. No one else seems to notice; but then again, no one else pays much attention to Alayne.

It's not like that when it's just the two of them though, like now. If anything, she's gets to be a bit of a show-off. Jon rolls onto his side, props himself up on an elbow and looks down at her. Alayne shifts her arm to squint one eye back at him. He swallows, hard. 'I heard Viserys say so yesterday to Father in the Keep,' he admits. 'He told Father that I'd never be a dragon. Not the way they were.'

'And?' says Alayne, her one blue eye staring straight up at him, piercing him through. 'What did he say to that?'

He shrugs and avoids her gaze, instead focusing on the red trails of Alayne's long hair, fanned out against the hot flagstones. They're hiding atop the rookery today, an ideal place to keep a low profile. No one comes up here: hardly anyone even knows about the secret hatch in the ceiling, and even fewer still would think to crawl through it and up onto the flat stone roof, which looks out towards the Tower of the Hand and beyond that, the sea. There's not an ounce of shade to be found up here, but the height of the ramparts and the racket of the ravens below make it the perfect spot for keeping out of the way whenever the septa's on the warpath, or to have a conversation that even Rhaenys, the snitch, will not be able to overhear. Which is why Jon brought Alayne here this morning, this horrible shame burning in the pit of his stomach. But now that they're here —

'Jon.' The eye blinks up at him. 'What did he—'

'Nothing,' he snaps. 'He said _nothing_ , alright? So that's all there is to it.'

Indeed, Rhaegar had said not one word of protest in defence of his son; had merely stood there, and let the silence speak for itself. Jon's arm collapses from underneath him, and he flops onto his stomach, suddenly feeling irrationally cross with Alayne, even though she's done nothing wrong. It's all this sun, he thinks. It's this endless fucking summer, and fucking _Viserys_ , who no one's allowed to be cross with.

There's nothing but quiet between them for a long moment, save for the quiet chatter of the ravens thrumming below. He keeps his face turned away from her, in case the painful smarting behind his eyes evolves into something infinitely more embarrassing. Maybe, he thinks distantly, cheek pressed against the hot pink stone of the Keep. Maybe one day it'll be a relief. To stop pretending to be something he's clearly not. But right now all he feels is hollowed out. 'And if you stay out here any longer, you'll become as brown as a Dornishwoman,' he grouses.

'So?' Alayne retorts, after a pause. 'You fancy Arianne Martell.'

'I do not. She's terrifying.'

'Well, perhaps that's the sort of thing you go in for.'

'Alayne,' he says, trying for stern. 'You're too young to be saying things like that.'

'Like what?'

'Like, you know. You shouldn't be paying any attention to that sort of thing.'

'You mean to you and Arianne?'

' _No_. I mean the sort of thing that goes on between men and women.' Gods, does he sound sanctimonious. But though she's indeed too clever by half, it's his job to take care of her. It's not going to make him a dragon, but it's what he knows best. 'It's complicated. You shouldn't talk about what you don't understand.'

He listens to the chime of Alayne's laugh. 'Oh, and what lessons did you learn, trailing after Arianne Martell's skirts all solstice?'

'I didn't!' Perhaps he had, but just a bit and only because she had smelled incredibly enticing, like almonds and other unnameable flowers. 'You've been reading too many stories. They've clearly addled your mind.'

'My mind's perfectly intact, thank you,' she replies airily. 'And you've nothing to be embarrassed about. If you'd asked her to dance at the feast, as you were so clearly desperate to, she would've said yes.'

He turns his head to face her. Alayne is now also lying flat on her stomach next to him, pillowing her head in her arms. But despite her light tone, the expression on her pale face is inscrutable. 'And you know this how?' he asks.

She rolls her eyes. 'I pay attention,' Alayne says, as if explaining something deeply obvious to a half-wit. 'And it's also how I know that Viserys clearly has his own reasons for saying those things about you, which are less about you and more about him.'

Jon scoffs with such vehemence, the entire upper half of his body participates in it. 'And what possible reason would Viserys have to be concerned with me?' he asks.

Alayne's blue eyes flick between his own searchingly, as if he were withholding the answer from her. As if he were capable of keeping anything from her. 'I don't know yet,' she admits. 'But don't worry. I'll figure it out.'

And she will. She should terrify him, Jon suddenly thinks. Alayne and that mind of hers. She should terrify everyone, and perhaps that's why she's taken to hiding it. But she trusts him, and that's enough.

All of a sudden, Alayne shifts up, fists the back of his tunic and starts pulling herself atop him. Jon lets out a yelp of pain as she digs her skinny elbows into his sides, hauling her torso almost completely atop his own. Then she doesn't say anything, just rests her face between his shoulder blades. Letting her entire body fall into his. She's either trying to comfort him, or suffocate him, or both. Knowing her and her penchant for doing many things at once, it's the latter.

But Jon doesn't mind. She weighs barely anything. He closes his eyes against the sun. Feels her heartbeat reach out through the thin silk of her dress, through the cotton of his tunic, through to his own heart.

`

Theirs is a large family, though it doesn't always feel that way. Just as Westeros is made up of seven kingdoms whose relationship to one another fluctuates with tide and temperament, so too is House Targaryen thus divided. His father, Rhaegar, commands the greatest loyalty, with Rhaenys, Egg and Daenerys as disciples, while the King has Viserys — which, as everyone would agree, is plenty.

As for the rest of them, Elia is everyone's; Lyanna belongs to herself; and he and Alayne have each other. That's just how it is.

`

If it weren't for the songs, he never would've known that his mother and father had once been a love match. When Jon was a very young boy, there had been a time when Rhaegar used to fill the stables full of horses, the way some desperate men would fill rooms with flowers. Glistening chestnut mares with thick necks, coarse manes and a high step; willowy greys, round eyes fringed with the most beautiful lashes. Unbroken stallions, Dornish palominos, shaggy piebalds. All these Rhaegar paraded before Lyanna's unseeing eyes, this glorious procession of horses, and the whole court would avert their faces in shame at the unseemly display: of the divine Rhaegar, reduced to begging his own wife to love him again.

Well, surely Lyanna Stark was made of ice, but there came a point when even she could take no more. So one day she sent them all — the whole lot of them, all those majestic beasts — to be slaughtered at the horseflesh market. 'That stupid man,' she'd said afterwards, her voice thick with emotion, a drained goblet in her hand. 'Trapping them in those musty, filthy stables. Where were they to run and be free, so far south?'

So the horses were sent to their death, and Rhaegar receded from their lives. From then on, rarely did he ever darken the door of their solar in the evenings, preferring the warmth of Elia's steady hearth to Lyanna's cold one. Even his attitude towards his youngest son took on a stilted, formal aspect that had not existed previously. Before, he used to swing the boy onto his shoulders and together they'd race down the corridors like feral beasts, spooking maesters and chambermaids in passing.

It's difficult to not resent his mother for the loss of that.

'That's a choice Rhaegar made, though,' argues Alayne. 'Lyanna didn't tell him to keep away from you. He's your father, no matter what happened with your mother. That's a decision he made.'

'And my mother didn't have to kill all those horses,' he points out. 'That's a choice _she_ made.'

'She did it out of mercy!'

Jon snorts. 'Yeah, well, tell that to the poor beasts. And besides, you weren't even here then. How would you know?'

Alayne picks up the embroidery circle from her lap and pretends she's suddenly very engrossed in her stitching. Of course she'll never say a bad word against his mother, to whom she's passionately devoted. In addition to pretending to be stupid, she's also begun picking up the affectations of Lyanna's ladies; braiding her coppery hair just so, and letting a haughty lilt enter into her phrases. Why she does this, and what she hopes to gain from it, he will probably never know. It's got something to do with the general mystery that is womanfolk, though he's never thought about her in those terms before. She's still just Alayne, isn't she? Sometimes he'll look up from the training yard and catch her walking down a passageway, trailing after Lyanna's cortege — his mother's bright little shadow, yet still so resolutely herself.

'Would you please stop staring at me,' she says, pulling a thread of red silk through her canvas, 'and finish your book.'

Jon snaps the volume shut. 'No thanks. Dull as tombs, that is,' he says, tossing it onto the table in front of them and leaning back in his chair until it's tipped onto its hind legs. Alayne arches an eyebrow in his direction, signalling her disapproval. That's another new trick she's learned from the ladies. 'Can't you just tell me what happens? I know you've read it already.'

'Absolutely not,' she says, pulling the circle closer to her face.

'Alayne.' He's definitely not whining, because that's beneath his princely dignity. 'Maester Volkan will keep me back if I can't convince him that I've read it by tomorrow, and Jaime had said last time that he might spar with me a bit in the training yard after lessons—'

She bites off the end of her thread, and turns to rummage in her basket for a different colour. Mentioning Jaime Lannister to Alayne is a gamble: she's always been a bit odd about him, Jon's noticed, probably because he's in the Kingsguard and is so dashing or whatever. Jaime's also easily the finest swordsman in King's Landing, and lately he's taken to loping by the training yard during Jon and Egg's lessons with the masters-at-arms, sometimes sparring with the young princes with an air of almost exaggerated leisure.

But there's nothing feigned about Jaime's swordwork, which he does with a power and ease that seems to pull everything towards him, like the tide against the marina. Jon wants that for himself; and what's more, thinks he feels that potential in himself. This isn't even something he's told Alayne, but already he loves how combat makes everything so simple, how it distills all the world and its noise down to its most essential elements. He knows she'd hate it, even if he could find the words to explain what that means to him.

'—which I won't be able to go to if I've got crypt-beard Volkan breathing down my throat about the sieges of Harrenhal. Come on, you can speak of mercy —'

'Mercy is for horses only,' Alayne interrupts flatly.

'Clearly, if your definition of mercy is the slaughterhouse,' Jon says. 'I shudder to think what justice means to you.'

'Oh, go on then,' Alayne snaps. 'Go swing your sword about with Jaime Lannister like a thick-headed bridge troll and be the only illiterate Targaryen prince there ever was. See how it feels when even _Egg_ sounds like an archmaester next to you.' The embroidery circle has now completely obscured her face; she's not even pretending to be sewing anymore, is just glaring at him through her perfect little stitches.

Jon sighs. He drops his chin, and slowly, slowly angles his weight forward in his chair. The front legs strike the stone floor with a resounding _thunk_ , and he suddenly hurls himself across the table, reaching for the circle with an outstretched hand. But Alayne is surprisingly quick, and whisks it behind her seat and out of his grasp at the last moment. 'I swear to all the gods,' she hisses, eyes ablaze. 'I will stab you with my needle if you ruin my stitching.'

'Oh yeah?' he says, grinning widely. He leans forward a bit further and teasingly nudges his nose against hers. 'You wouldn't know what end to use.'

'Of course I would.' A strand of her hair has come loose from her braid, and falls across the high colour blossoming on her cheeks. 'The eye, in your eye.'

He laughs, and keeps laughing as he slides back into his seat; she's fuming, but he can't help teasing her like this, especially when she's paying more attention to her blasted, interminable sewing than to him. 'You should come to the training yard,' he says, 'and ruthlessly embroider us to death.'

Alayne glares at him, but there's something halfway to a smile about it. 'Don't be disgusting,’ she says, tucking her hair behind her ear. 'And I've better things to do than watch you and Egg hack at each other with your wooden swords, thank you.'

'Uh,' Jon pulls a face. 'We've been using real swords for years now.'

'Fascinating,' she says drily. 'But being a prince requires a bit more from you than that, you know.'

He rolls his eyes. 'I'm not sure if you've noticed, but we're practically awash with Targaryen princes,' he points out. 'I think Westeros will survive if I'm not as well-read as most.'

'Jon,' she says in that infuriating way she does sometimes, like she's got him completely turned inside-out and can read his insides like tea leaves. 'Don't.'

 _What would you want from me then_ , he wants to ask her. _Because I am_ very _open to suggestions_. But he knows Alayne will never say. She just believes — without conditions — in him, of all people. All this, from a girl who mouths the words to the Dornishman's Wife when they're meant to be reciting the Seven-Pointed Star in the sept.

So instead he picks up the discarded book from the table, and flicks it open to a random page. 'Fine,' he says. 'Though how about I read aloud to you instead?'

'But I've finished that one already.’

'So?' he shrugs. 'Then I'll read something different.'

And just like that, Alayne visibly brightens, instantly diverted. She cannot resist a good tale. 'You may,' she allows graciously, 'but I get to choose the book.'

Scraping his chair back with a grin, Jon gets to his feet and roams through the shelves of the library's collection, inspecting the mouldering spines. 'Here's one,' he calls out, ' _The Blacks and the Greens_ , set during the reign of Aegon's Conquest—'

'I swear to all the gods, Jon, if you dare read me a story with a dragon in it —'

'Alright, alright,' he laughs. Soon he finds the volume he's been looking for all along and returns to her, holding it aloft. Her hands are in her sewing again, but she's looking up at him expectantly. The sun has settled itself over her shoulders like a bright cape of silver. 'Here you go. Your favourite.'

'Yes,' she says, mouth curling into a smile. 'A love story, please.'

`

He had been a moon away from his eighth name day when Lyanna brought Alayne home from the Vale.

This was not long after the incident with the horses. So when his mother departed King's Landing, Jon had been convinced that she would not come back. But he already knew this was not a fear he could share; that he was a boy who should be long past pining for his mother. So he buried that shame as deep as it could go.

But Viserys could tell, of course. Viserys always knew when to go in for the kill. 'Crying for your mother again, are you?' he hissed under her breath when the septa's attentions were elsewhere. 'Seven hells, she's just a wolf bitch. Question is, what does that make you?'

What did that make him? He wasn't sure, and still isn’t. Even then he'd known that he was made up of something entirely different from the others. Elia was a lovely woman, but Rhaenys and Egg had had the good sense to be born true Targaryens, even inheriting the delicate, musician-like hands of their father. But the North had hung heavy over him since birth: a strange and mysterious birthright, from a strange and mysterious place. His mother's native land.

'My mongrel pup,' Lyanna says, whenever she’s in one of her rare affectionate moods, twirling one of his dark curls around a finger. Perhaps that should have been enough to bind mother and son closer together, but she never speaks of the North to him, never mentions a girlhood spent in the cold. And what's more, sometimes Jon thinks he sees her look at him with a strange expression on her face. He could be doing anything — horsing around with Egg in the yard, or spooning a piece of fruit into his mouth at the breakfast table — and all of a sudden, he'll know Lyanna's eyes are on him. Staring at him as though she does not know him and does not care to, as if she’s still withholding her judgement on some aspect of his character. It used to make him feel very alone, and unknown even to himself.

But then came Alayne. Such a small thing, back then. A bundle swaddled in too many cloaks, being lifted from the carriage by his mother. Lyanna unwrapped her in front of Jon like a name-day gift. Her red hair was mussed, her blue eyes crusty with sleep. 'She's to be my ward,' his mother said. She had stood behind the strange, blank-faced little girl, both hands set firmly on her thin shoulders, but Lyanna's intense stare was all for Jon. 'And when she's older, she will become one of my ladies. She's one of us; do you understand?'

'Yes,' he replied, even though he hadn’t, not in the slightest. But he wasn't going to try his luck, not when he'd just got his mother back. So Lyanna had nodded approvingly, and knelt so that she could speak her next words quietly next to the girl's ear.

'Go on, sweetheart,' Lyanna had said, with a kind of tenderness Jon had never heard from her before. 'This is Jon. He's going to take care of you now.'

Clearly the horses were still fresh in everyone's minds, because Lyanna's plans for the girl were met with very little resistance, even when she insisted that Alayne attend lessons with the other children. Well, women tended to have such fits of fancy, didn't they; harmless passions they'd indulge until they grew bored and moved on to the next thing. 'Poor little soul,' sighed Elia, placing a hand on Alayne's red crown. 'This is no place for motherless girls.'

Elia's children could have been said to share the word, though not the spirit of the sentiment. 'A bastard, and a foreign one at that,' sniffed Rhaenys, who was never so happy as when she believed herself even the slightest bit put-upon. 'How could your mother do this to us?'

'I heard,' whispered Daenerys, 'that she's not actually a Stone. I mean, look at her.' Three small heads swivelled down the table; three pairs of violet eyes descended upon the little heap of a girl sitting there at the end, whose already pale face turned a deathly white as they set upon her. 'The red hair and those eyes. She's a fish, that's for sure. A traitor.'

(Nowadays, such gossip only makes Alayne laugh. 'You'd think all common folk were all equally dun-coloured, the way some noble houses jealously hoard their looks. And yes, I do mean you Targaryens in particular. People see what they want to see in hair or eyes or what-have-you. Like husbands terrified of being cuckolded.'

She is the least curious of them all about her parentage. 'Because I know exactly who they are,' she says. 'They're dead.')

And at that, Rhaenys, Daenerys and Egg turned to look back at Jon, whose own gaze had been fixed on the clenched fists in his lap. Because wasn't he, too, then made up of traitorous flesh? That’s how this story goes, isn’t it? A wolf girl runs off with a prince, sparking up years of war and slaughter. Countless lives, wasted. Men’s bodies dredged from the Trident; men’s blood dying the crownlands red. The Starks and the Tullys committed the blackest of treason in taking up arms for Robert Baratheon's cause, and they perished for it.

Yet here he was. And now so was she.

It should have been so easy. Condemn the foreigner; be accepted into the glorious fold. But his mouth went as dry as a Dornish desert, his jackrabbit heart slurred off its beats, and he did nothing, said nothing. When he lifted his head, the world had gone a bit wobbly at the edges, but he saw that Rhaenys and Egg were staring down at their books; Daenerys threw him one last disdainful look before she, too, swung her silvery braids and turned away.

Then there was only Alayne, staring back at him. Her wide-eyed gaze seemed to overwhelm her face, like the surface of a lake thawing, expanding. Actually, everything about her was very overwhelming, all of a sudden. But he had only been a boy then, after all — a boy whose spirits were suddenly spiralling higher than the spires of the sept, and already forgetting what it felt like to be lonely.

`

One would think that seven kingdoms is quite enough to contend with, but there comes a time when his father invites some fancy so-and-so from Pentos to King's Landing. For weeks, the Keep is abuzz with activity and speculation. The first invitation of the Crown Prince not at the behest of the King; and to a foreigner, of all people. What could it all mean? On the morning of his arrival, the new banners are unfurled over the fortress walls, and the silk tents erected on the marina, ready to receive the esteemed guest from across the water. But just before the ships appear over the horizon, Jon falls ill.

'I think it was the venison,' he says, arranging his features into a suitably miserable expression, 'from yesterday's supper. I didn't sleep a wink last night, and I'm still not feeling quite myself. I think it'd be best if I don't go today, don't you think?'

('And remember to focus in on Elia,' Alayne counsels. 'Your mother won't care. Elia's the one who will most want you there, so she's the one you've got to win over. The key is not to overdo it. Just be your usual, quiet self, but also look as if you're constantly two seconds away from retching all over their boots.')

Elia tuts in that gentle way of hers, and presses her hand against Jon's forehead. 'Poor thing. Are you sure you can't at least come out for the arrival? It'd be good for them to see all the family together.'

While the prospect of spending the next few days being paraded around is excruciating to the extreme, his conscience does twist uncomfortably at the thought of disappointing Elia, who always gets dewy-eyed at the idea of _all the family together_. She’s the one who insists on these shared breakfasts between Rhaegar’s wives and children, in the hopes of replicating some of the happy cosiness of her own childhood under the sun. But the Targaryens couldn’t be less like the Martells — Elia’s family are loud and brash and constantly in each other’s pockets, a completely different species of animal. Despite himself, Jon's gaze travels over to his mother, who has been disinterestedly picking at her bread and cheese across from him. Her grey eyes, mirror images of his own, flick up briefly, like a cold candle suddenly lit. _You're on your own_ , they say, before Lyanna goes back to tearing her crusts into smaller and smaller pieces.

'Well,' Jon says, scrabbling for purchase, 'I don't —'

Luckily, Rhaenys takes this moment to lob forth her perfect-formed _ugh_ of disgust. 'Look at the state of him, Mother,' she says, wrinkling her nose. 'He's likely to keel over into the sea and embarrass us all.'

'Thanks, Rhaenys,' he replies dryly. But when Egg accidentally flips a small bowl of cream onto his tunic and Elia is suitably distracted with her son, Jon winks at her. She stares back at him, stunned, as though he's slapped her across the face. What are you up to, she mouths, but Jon just shrugs and quickly goes back to looking sad and depleted as Elia's attention returns to them, more harried than before.

'Right,' she sighs, distractedly. 'Well, of course you should stay behind and rest, if you feel so unwell.' she says, wiping cream off her hands with a cloth. 'Though your father will be disappointed to not have you there.' Beside her, Rhaenys looks on the brink of speaking up, but then appears to think better of it, and instead settles for popping a grape in her mouth and chewing grumpily.

At the mention of his father, Jon feels like he really will be sick then, but it's fine. It'll pass. He focuses on the empty plate in front of him. Be your usual, quiet self. He's always found not saying anything to be the simplest and most freeing thing in the world, like stepping out of a room you don't want to be in. He senses Lyanna's hands go still across from him.

'Off to bed with you then,' his mother says then, quietly. 'I'll have someone bring you up a broth.'

`

They watch the pageantry of the arrival from the balcony off Lyanna's solar. It's a strange feeling, seeing his family from a distance. Perspective paints everyone with an indifferent brush: even the King becomes just another blot on the marina, and the hunch of his back is all the more pronounced, making him look thin and enfeebled. But the tableau they present is striking all the same: the King first, with Jon’s father to his right, then his wives and children, before Viserys and Daenerys round out the end. They look like a family. Like they belong together.

'Are you certain you wouldn't rather be down there with them?' Alayne says, as if reading his mind. The visitor from Essos is stepping off the barge, rich purple robes billowing out behind his corpulent body, hands outstretched. Jon sees his father step forth, and grasp them both in his own. 'It's not too late, you know.'

He turns away from them to face Alayne, who is regarding him with a wary expression, as if all the sudden he's become something unknowable to her, something she cannot fully trust. And that just won't do, will it. 'And miss the chance to finally trounce you at cyvasse?' he says, bumping his shoulder against hers. 'Ha, as if.'

Her excited glow returns, like a sunrise. 'I'll give you ten moves,' she announces. 'Ten moves to keep up with me. Afterwards, I'm forfeit.'

Amidst the pomp and splendour of the visit, Jon and Alayne are forgotten by all, and so what passes are a blur of wild days and nights. Scavenging their own meals from the steaming kitchens, watching the gentlefolk parade past the ramparts in their finery and dropping breadcrumbs into the elaborate braids of the ladies below. Entering the cell of the Master of Whisperers while the court is out on a hunt and rapping on the walls, looking for hidden passageways. Sometimes Alayne reads — openly again, at last — or sews, as Jon sharpens his sword and daydreams about facing Jaime Lannister in the training yard. It becomes difficult to imagine that life should have been any different.

Then early one evening, Alayne asks, 'Where do you think those ships are going?' They are atop the rookery again, with a small sack of apples between them for supper. It's been a hot, stale day. Below the streets are choking with the heady smell of straw and the ferment of unwashed bodies, but up where they sit, the air is still clean and cool. Jon follows the line of her arm, to where her hand points to the ships swaying in the pearly surf of the marina below.

'Those'll be our galleons,' Jon says. 'Balerion and the Black Dread. The fastest in the fleet. They'll be off to White Harbour to collect the season's taxes, I suppose.' He bites into his apple with a sweet snap.

What he thinks, but doesn't say, is how one of the ships will belong to the man from Pentos, of course. The day he boards his ship and leaves these shores, their lives will ossify back into their usual places. With all its silent, unfathomable expectations, laden with history and ritual. Sometimes he has these dreams about it – and strangely enough they're not filled with fire and blood, but something quieter, feather-light. And cold. In these dreams this sensation piles up in drifts upon him, slow and deadly, robbing him of all feeling. When he told Alayne about them, she had said, _what you describe is snow_ , and afterwards, more sharply, _I'm not a dreamseer_. Jon reaches his arm back and throws his apple core as hard as he can into the growing dusk.

'That's disappointing,' she sighs, leaning over onto the ramparts and propping her chin up with her hands. 'Let's pretend they're going on a – trading expedition. And that their stores are filled with spices, which they'll then trade for silks and lemons.'

'This is a very specific game of pretend, for a very specific person,' he says, and she replies, laughingly, 'Well then, fine. Where would you have them go? Where would you go, if you could?'

'Where will we go,' he corrects her, almost without thinking. This is his turn to pretend after all, and he has no need for dresses or fruit of any kind. The sun silently lowers itself over the sea, and the sky is gradually shot-through with streaks of violet and crimson. Against the glory of today's final procession, it's getting harder to make out her face, but Jon can feel Alayne’s smile.

'Okay,' she says, the quiet darkness gathering around her like a veil. 'Where will we go.'

Jon tries to imagine it: the two of them somewhere else, either warmer or cooler. Far away from the looming fortress walls of the Keep, from his mother and siblings. His family. But it becomes like trying to erase his own reflection by rubbing at the glass – the act only serves to bring the objects in the mirror into sharper focus. He cannot tell if he should be relieved, or filled with dread.

'Why not – north,' Alayne suggests, and in the quiet gloom of night he can hear the curious edge in her voice as she says it. 'Where your mother is from. Have you never wished to see it for yourself?'

'Isn't it still my turn?' he says. 'You squandered your fantasy on lemons, of which there aren't any in the north, might I add.'

'They have glasshouses. I mean, I heard they have glasshouses there.'

'Well, I'm not sure about dresses,' Jon says, 'but you know we've got lemons here, right? We don't have to go all the way to the glasshouses of the north. We can just go to the kitchens.' And immediately he knows he has said the wrong thing; the strange tension between himself and Alayne breaks, like a flock of birds bursting from a treetop. But something frozen rushes through the vacuum it leaves behind.

'The kitchens?' says Alayne. The words come out sounding crooked, as if told from a slant. 'Is that all what life is going to be from now on. Just – lemons from the kitchen? Ships for taxes? Is that it?'

'Hey,' Jon says hurriedly, and reaches blindly into the darkness towards her; but she's already flung herself forward, throwing her arms around his neck. He runs a soothing hand up and down her back as she buries her face into the crook where his throat dips to meets his collarbone. Jon can feel the hot flush of her cheek warm his skin. 'Tell me what's wrong,' he says into her hair. 'Tell me so we can fix it.' It doesn't even occur to him that he could be promising her something beyond his means. He only knows it has to be done.

But she just laughs wetly, and tightens her grip on him for a moment. 'I just – I suppose I wish the visitor would never leave.' And Jon understands exactly what she means. 'You haven't even managed to beat me at cyvasse yet,' she mumbles into his tunic.

A sudden gust of sea wind ruffles the curls against his neck. 'Perhaps I haven't been trying,' he says.

'Liar,' says Alayne. 'You've been trying very hard. You know how I know? It's this look on your face.' She pulls slightly away from him, to trace the crease between his brows with a fond, delicate finger. 'You get it when you're concentrating, and when you worry about me. It's been there for every game. When you're an old man, it'll be there always.'

'Seven hells,' Jon says. 'What is it you plan to do to me, Alayne?' That makes her laugh again – a true laugh – and suddenly the world feels like a good place to be in again.

`

Because the corridors are mostly deserted when Jon leaves the library with the cyvasse board under his arm, he decides against the circuitous route back to his mother's solar, and instead heads straight through the main passageways, which, though faster, take him close to the Great Hall, where the evening’s feasting has commenced. The torches on the walls flicker feebly as he walks by – they have not been trimmed for hours. For some reason the foreigner's presence has prompted a strange, delirious laxity to the usually strict decorum of the Keep. As Jon strides quickly through the hushed corridors, his head down, he passes a chambermaid in the arms of a seamstress, pressed into an obscure alcove; a guard leans against a wall and yawns openly into his hand; there's the sound of a lute strumming off-key, somewhere. The few others he passes all either walk in pairs, their heads bent close to one another in secret conference, or alone and stumbling, their eyes unfixed and bleary. None stop and recognise him. The Arbor Gold must have flowed very generously into the cups tonight.

But when he comes to the open atrium just beyond the Hall, someone does call out his name. Jon turns, and his heart sinks: it's Egg, of all people, sitting against a pillar with his legs curled into his chest. His brother clambers unsteadily to his feet, and comes over to him.

'Hullo, Jon,' Egg says dejectedly. 'Where've you been?'

'Just – around,' Jon replies, shifting the cyvasse board behind his back. 'What are you doing out here? Why aren't you with the others?'

Moodily, Egg jerks his head in the direction of the Great Hall. 'They're still feasting. It's the last one, 'cause that man's leaving tomorrow.'

'Oh,' says Jon, deflating. 'Tomorrow?'

'And I've been sent out here 'cause I accidentally stepped on Rhaenys' dress during the dancing and ripped her hem,' Egg barrels on, full of grief. ‘So she ordered me out of the Hall, and I'm not to go back in until I've located my right foot, or something like that. Hey, Jon? What d’you reckon Pentos is like?'

As with all conversations with Egg, it takes Jon a moment to parse through his brother’s stream of consciousness. 'No idea,' he admits, shaking his head. 'Why do you ask?'

'That's where the visitor's from. Wish I could go with him,' Egg sighs tremulously. 'Anywhere's got to be better than here.'

This remark causes Jon to look curiously at his brother, and really take note of his unhappiness. Even though Egg is nearly five-and-ten, and his elder by several moons, there's always been something quite – yielding about him, as if he'll always be perfectly happy anywhere, so long as Rhaenys and his mother are there to tell him when to lift his spoon to his mouth. But now, as Egg swipes at his running nose with the cuff of his jerkin, Jon can see that his eyes are rimmed with red.

'I'm sick of feasts,' Egg continues miserably. 'They're so tiresome and long. Even the hunt was boring. No one caught anything but Father and Viserys, and my horse went lame in the first chase, so I had to swap with Rhaenys’ mare. It tried to roll over in the creek. It was horrid. You're lucky to have been ill and missed it all.'

'I'm sure it wasn't quite so bad,' Jon says, all the while trying to shift discreetly towards the exit. He imagines Alayne waiting for him by the fire of his mother’s solar, or perhaps on the balcony, looking out towards the lustre of the moonlight on the surf, wondering what’s keeping him. ‘Anyways, I ought to —’

'Even the King stayed away for most of it, not that I blame him. The visitor seemed to get along best with Father anyway. How d'you think they met, and how'd he manage to get his hands on those eggs? Seven hells, the looks on everyone's faces when he opened that trunk. You could tell he was right pleased with himself then. I wonder if he and Father planned it? They must've, surely. Father knows everything.'

'Sorry — what?'

'Oh, well I suppose you won't have heard.' Surprisingly, this seems to perk Egg up a bit. 'The man from Pentos, he brought Father a gift. Three real dragon eggs. That'll be one for each of us, I suppose.'

`

Years later, when Jon is a man grown, he will often wonder about the truth behind those eggs. He will never regret being absent from the feast, but sometimes he will try to imagine the moment it all went so wrong, as if by doing so he might be able to alter its outcome. It’s also a good mental exercise for him to remember their faces, as they were: his mother, Elia, Rhaenys, Egg. Daenerys. His father is a blur. They seem reasonably happy with their lives. The King and Viserys, he tries harder to forget. Sometimes it works, sometimes it really doesn’t.

The question that will haunt him most is whether Illyrio Mopatis was indeed in league with his father, as many will suggest in the years to come, or if he had acted on his own, and to what ends. Whether — while he was their honoured guest, feted by all of King's Landing, eating food prepared in their kitchens, dancing alongside his siblings — he felt any regret at all for what he was about to bring into their lives.

But unfortunately by then, anyone who might have known the answer will be gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess 11 and 14 is old enough to be engaged and shipped to the Night's Watch in Westeros, but they're fun to write as kids, y'know? Another historical note: Robert's Rebellion lasts approx. 3-4 years, as opposed to just the one, for the purposes of this story.


	2. part ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god. This ended up being. SO much longer than I intended. Thank you so, so much for all your kind works of encouragement in the last part, I really appreciate it so much. Hopefully this instalment will answer a few questions!
> 
> TW: Implied sexual assault, and quite a bit of violence.

Only Alayne and his mother are not drawn into the ensuing hysteria over the dragon eggs, and only because his mother could quite simply care less, and Alayne refuses to let herself believe it. 'There haven't been dragons in Westeros for generations,' she says. 'Better men have scoured the isles for them, and suddenly a stranger from Pentos arrives with _three_ petrified specimens?' 

'Perhaps there were some in the Free Cities that we hadn't known about,' Jon points out. 'That's not so completely outside the realm of possibility, is it?' 

But for a girl usually in possession of such a flowery imagination, Alayne is strangely obstinate. 'They're fraudulent,' she says firmly, 'but that doesn't even matter. Mopatis ought to have given them to the King, as is proper, but instead he bequeathed them to your father – and his three children.' She looks meaningfully at Jon, who shakes his head, wishing she would stop, but she doesn't. 'Not that it's difficult getting under the King's skin, but Mopatis – or someone through him – is trying to make a statement, and it's working. Maege from the kitchens overheard Tywin Lannister say that relations between your father and the King have never been more fraught.' 

Jon's hand flexes compulsively at his side. 'The King doesn't believe in prophecy,' he answers hoarsely. 'The King only believes the voices he hears in his own head.' 

'But your father believes,' Alayne presses on. 'And who does not know that the dragon must have three heads?' 

'Alayne, stop,' Jon hisses. 'This is treason. The King still lives.' 

Though they're speaking in the privacy of his mother's solar, he still glances warily around them. The walls of the Keep have always had ears, but a new tension now stalks the halls and passageways of the fortress. Jon recognises it as the King's own paranoia, a lumbering beast stinking of fear. Though the King has rarely appeared in court since the death of Queen Rhaella, his ever-shifting moods still make themselves felt throughout the Keep, blessing meals one moment and poisoning the wells the next. 

But never before have they hung so heavy, and there's the sense that something has finally changed irrevocably, even amongst the children. Whereas once Rhaenys and Daenerys might have taken a turn through the gardens together, arms linked like true sisters, they eye each other with suspicion now, and seem to make an effort to avoid one another. Egg withdraws further and further into himself, confused and disturbed by what he cannot understand. And Jon watches all this from a distance, an unknowable fear coiling tighter and tighter in his stomach with every passing day. 

'There have always been sides,' says Alayne, more softly. 'You know this. Only now because you're older, you'll be expected to choose which one to take.' She twists the end of her braid around her right forefinger — it's her only tell, as far as Jon knows, but he can also see that mind of her whirling away, running through different stratagems and discarding the ones that won't work for them. 'People will expect you to take up your father's cause when you're grown, as you are his son, and since it is known that the King does not like the look of you.' 

'Did Maege from the kitchens teach you that bit of gossip too?' Jon asks dryly, trying to keep the tremor from his voice. But of course it’s no secret that the King does not care for him, the product of the long rebellion that nearly toppled his House. Jon does not think that the King has ever spoken more than a handful of words in his direction. 'I just —', Jon starts, but then stops and gives a frustrated sigh, scrubbing his mouth with the back of his hand as if to wipe the thought away before it can take root. 

Alayne releases her braid, and reaches up to tuck one of his errant curls back into place. 'Don't worry so much,' she says, as if it’s not just possible, but even easy. 'Just promise me that you'll keep a clear head, and be careful.' She retracts her hand, and Jon is suddenly struck by a desire to take hold of it and press it to his face, his chest. His skin feels prickly and overheated, and the feel of her small, pale hand might be its salve. He might not be a dragon, but he doesn't know what he'd be without her. 

_'You_ need to be careful,' he insists, and Alayne replies, as light as a breeze, 'Of course. But what is a bastard to anyone? Especially now that there are fake eggs for you Targaryens to murder each other over.' 

`

In this strange new world, Viserys is unfortunately given license to become only more himself. He's the only one permitted to enter the King's chambers — even Tywin, his own Hand, is barred — and Viserys leaves these visitations with something strange and excitable hanging about him, like the shimmering air above a candle, as though he could leap out of his own skin at any moment. Jon notices that even Daenerys, the only one of them that used to keep her head high and straight in Viserys’ presence, begins to stiffen whenever he draws near. Serving girls turn deathly pale when it's their turn to approach Viserys' side with more wine for his cup, and some begin disappearing altogether – the chambermaid who sang, Rhea who stoked the hearth in the mornings, little Jessamyn from the kitchens. Viserys expands into the space where they once inhabited, quick and terrible and hungry.

'Tell me something, Jon.' And Jon looks up from his books reluctantly, because it's him, of course it's him, this was always going to happen sooner or later. Viserys is slouching in an almost friendly way against the high back of their maester's chair, as if he's merely stopping by the children's lessons for a chat. No one says anything: the maester does not acknowledge Viserys' presence, does not even lift his eyes from the open tome in front of him, as though he's been emptied out of his own body. They have been abandoned. On either side of him, Rhaenys and Daenerys have become statues, and out of the corner of Jon's eye, he sees Alayne discreetly clasp her hands together. They're shaking, he realises. 

Viserys looms further over the shrinking husk of a maester, cocks his head to the side. 'How does one deal with a dragon that's come from a wolf cunt?' he asks lightly, menace pulling at the corner of his mouth. When no one utters a sound, Viserys lets out a barking laugh, baring his teeth. 'Come now, children. Open your bestiaries.' He claps his hands together jovially. 'Someone tell me how such monsters are to be slain.' 

And then suddenly: 'We're studying _arithmetic_ ,' Alayne says. It's spoken quietly enough, but in a flat undertone that drips with cold disdain. 

Viserys' silvery head swivels around to face her — and before Jon can even process what's happening, he's on his feet and his heart is in his throat, and he's hearing himself shout out, 'And what would you call a dragon that _is_ a cunt, Viserys?'

Rhaenys makes a strangled noise in her throat. Across the table, Egg looks ready to melt into the flagstones, and in all honesty, Jon is also trembling from head to foot, but not entirely out of fear. He feels his blood run hot and cold all at once, like a fever, but he forces himself to meet Visery's violet eyes, which are narrowing into slits. Jon curls his hands into fists at his sides, hard enough that his nails bite into his palms, but it's good. The pain steadies the room around him.

'Well,' Viserys says finally, his silky voice full of threat. 'Is this what the good maester has been teaching my brother's children? Such uncouth ways?' They are all absolutely still for a long moment, like startled woodland creatures. Then something dark and cruel _twists_ in Viserys' face, and he reaches down to grab a handful of the maester's white hair at the scalp. 

The old man — suddenly awake — gives out a piercing, bone-rattling scream, but it doesn't last long; Viserys violently slams his head against the edge of the table once, twice, three times, until he is silent as the grave.

When he finally releases the maester, the old man slumps forward, and slides bonelessly onto the floor. Chest heaving, Viserys stares unseeingly down at the crumpled heap at his feet, then looks back up at Jon. 'For shame,' he spits out, eyes as hard and dark as a snake's. 'Look at what you've done to the poor maester. You'd better mind your fucking tongue the next time you speak to me, or someone else is going to lose their head because of you.' 

With one last withering look, Viserys turns around, and stalks out of the library — once the heavy wood door slams shut behind him, Daenerys lets out a stifled gasp, and she and Rhaenys rush over to the old man's side. 

On his way out, Viserys steps in a pool of the maester's blood. It leaves warm, sticky tracks against the flagstones. A servant will be made to sluice them with buckets of water and hard cakes of lye, and tomorrow it'll be like it never happened. But not everything is so easily undone. When Jon finally remembers to breathe, when his pounding blood begins slowly recapturing his body, the first thing he feels is Alayne's hand, gripping his own. 

  
  


`

  
  


When Viserys begins appearing at the training yard during Jon and Egg's lessons with the masters-at-arms, Jon is certain he’s there to run him through with any bit of steel he can get his hands on. But he’d forgotten how it’s like with Viserys, how his uncle enjoys playing with this food. Day after day, Viserys stands there against the fence posts, again in that unnerving attitude of leisure, but one that Jon now knows is coiled tight, ready to spring at the slightest provocation. 

At first his gaze flicks between Egg and Jon equally, and though Jon can feel it burn like a brand on the back of his neck, he steadfastly avoids looking in Viserys' direction. Egg is less successful, and his swordwork quickly deteriorates, becoming tentative and sloppy. When Jon finally knocks him to his feet for the third time in so many rounds, Egg doesn't get back up. 

'C'mon,' Jon says, standing over his brother. He's not nearly as out of breath as he should be. 'Get up. Now. We've got to go again.' 

But Egg just sits there on the ground, slumped over like a puppet with its strings cut. 'I can't today,' he replies, voice very small. 'It's not working for me.' 

Jon glances around nervously; there aren't many people about the yard today, just a few soldiers and the smiths working by the forge, but it still won't do for Rhaegar's eldest to be seen sprawled out against the dusty straw. Jon bends over. 'It's okay, Egg,' he says quietly, for only his brother to hear. 'You just need to focus. We'll go more slowly this time, yeah?' 

Egg shakes his head. 'I'm no good at this, Jon,' he says. 'I'm never going to be, it's no use.' There is the sound of something delicate and wobbling coming from the back of his throat, and Jon realises that Egg is on the cusp of weeping, right here, out in the open, which just can't happen. So he clasps a hand around Egg's upper arm, and yanks him to his feet. Egg yelps. 'Hey—!' 

Across the yard, Viserys' eyes remain fixed on the both of them, waiting to see what happens next. Egg tries to pull his arm out of Jon's grip, but Jon keeps him where he is. 'You can't let him see you like this,' Jon says in an urgent undertone, forcing his brother's wide, confused eyes to meet his own, desperate to make him understand. 'You can't ever be weak in front of him, don’t you get it? You just can't react, ever. That's how he figures out how best to hurt you. You can't let him, Egg.' 

But Egg just stares back at Jon, before shaking his head slowly. 'I'm not like you, Jon,' he says, with weary resolve. 'I don't want to be afraid all the time. I'm sick and tired of it. Viserys can do what he wants, I don't care anymore.' Egg jerks his arm out of Jon's grasp, turns around and walks out of the yard, dressed in only his tunic and breeches and going gods-know-where. 

He should follow him; Jon should follow him and drag him back, thrust the sword back into Egg's hand and let him win the next round. Let him press the steel of the blade to Jon's neck and make him understand that this is his birthright and is what keeps him safe. But Jon only watches Egg walk away from it all without a backwards glance. And despite himself, that's how Viserys manages to catch his eye, a thin smirk inching its way across his face, like the slow cut of a knife. 

'Ignore him.' 

And Jon turns back around to see Jaime Lannister standing in front of him, his own sword already at the ready. 'Keep your eyes on me,' Jaime says to him in a low voice, and, as if to emphasise his point, suddenly swings his sword in a high, slashing movement — Jon is only just able to bring his own up in time to block the blow, staggering backwards from the force of it. 

Usually this is when Jaime would pull back to laugh good-naturedly, to let Jon find his footing again before they continue. But not this time. Immediately he crowds into Jon's space, lunging forward and bringing his sword down where Jon's shoulder is, was, as Jon hurls himself out of its arc, nearly stumbling over his own feet in the process. Jaime is focused and relentless, beating Jon back and back until he's pushed nearly to the perimeter of the yard. 

But the sound of steel meeting steel sings in the steaming air; Jon blocks and parries, throws his body out of the way of Jaime's ruthless blows. A small crowd gathers by the fences, a low murmur of excitement skating the surface. But Jon barely notices — he starts to forget about Viserys, about all of it, even about Jaime himself. There is only the need to push forward, to meet the next strike wherever it lands. Gradually the world around him starts to slow, and the smallest of details sharpen into focus, leaping into his eyeline as though he has all the time in the world between heartbeats to notice them. The beads of sweat flying off his opponent's brow. A lone scrap of cloud hovering over the banners. 

By the time Jaime finally manages to disarm Jon, knocking his sword out of his hands with the flat of his own blade, both are visibly spent, chests heaving. Viserys is gone. 

  
  


`

Later, Jaime comes to find him in the armoury, all ferocity gone. 'You're a fine swordsman,' he says, clapping a hearty hand on Jon's shoulder. 'You might even be great one day, if you can keep your focus.' 

'Thank you,' Jon says, trying to mask the gratification he feels. 'And thanks for – you know. For earlier.' 

Jaime's hand still rests on his shoulder. In a rare moment of hesitation, he looks at Jon in a considering way, as if he's unsure whether he should go on. 'Did you know,' he says finally, giving Jon a small shake before letting him go. 'There's a lot you can learn about a man from the way he fights.' 

'Oh yeah?' Jon asks, startled. For him, fighting has always been a chance to escape himself. The idea that it could actually be opening him up to further scrutiny is disconcerting, to say the least. 'How is that?' 

Jaime takes up a sword from a pile next to a whetstone – it must feel a heavy, dull thing compared to his gilded longsword, but still he tests its balance in his palm. 'Well, why not take your good uncle, for example,' says Jaime, running a finger along the blade's edge and looking the very picture of nonchalance. 'When he was coming up through the training yards, he was bullheaded and strong, but he lacked the mind and the patience for strategy. Why do you think you never see him in the yard anymore? But I daresay he’ll always manage to muscle his way through a tight spot, one way or another.' 

Of course, Jon thinks. Because who would dare lay a finger on Prince Viserys without invoking the wrath of the King? 

'Even then, you'll never know the true measure of a man until you are facing one another, each with a view to kill,' continues Jaime. He swings the sword one-handed, curving through the air in a few, easy strokes, before he stops and offers the hilt to Jon. 'Brutality makes honest creatures of us all,' Jaime says, as Jon reaches out to grasp the solid pommel. 'One day you'll see for yourself.' 

But then suddenly Egg's words return to him, looping back and back again like an echo in a cave – _I'm not like you. I don't want to be afraid all the time._ Jon sees his mother regard him like a stranger. On top of a sun-soaked rookery, Alayne's blue eye pierces through him. Why is it that everyone else seems to comprehend him so entirely, except himself? 

Before he can help it, Jon blurts out. 'What do you see – in me? When I fight?' 

Jaime pauses for a moment, again with that strange, considering look on his face, before laughter bursts forth from him. 'And give away my advantage? Not a chance, young prince.’ He lays a heavy, reassuring hand on Jon’s shoulder again. ‘No, you and I are going to have an interesting time of it together. I can feel it.' 

And standing there, in the dusty light of the armoury, Jon can't help but let himself feel absurdly, stupidly pleased by the compliment. Because Jaime Lannister is a knight of the Kingsguard, golden in every sense, and so certain of his place in the world. If there are men of honour like him still in Westeros, then surely, Jon thinks. Surely everything will right themselves in the end, dragons or no. His own path will become clearer as he grows older and wiser, and there will be a good ending to this story. Just as in the ones Alayne loves so much.

Jon hefts the dull sword and holds it outstretched, its blade and pommel resting in the palms of his hands. A pledge to the kind of future a man like Jaime Lannister represents. 'And I'll be glad of it,' says Jon. Fair knights, fair deeds. Peace in our time. 

  
  


`

Later, the King will allege that he, like a prophet of the Seven, was struck suddenly by divine inspiration, and that the fire and the sacrifice came together quite spontaneously as an extension of his will. But no one is fooled. 

The facts are these: it happens without warning at Viserys' twenty-first name day feast. A great boar is slaughtered for the occasion. Fine lords and ladies from up and down the realm arrive to sup and dance and suck the marrow from its bones. And once the carcass is picked clean, and their hands and faces are sticky with wine, the great doors of the Hall burst open and Jaime Lannister comes dragging the young boy by the collar of his shirt. His little body writhes like a fish on a hook, his kicking feet lifting off the ground. Screams rising to the rafters. 

Blank-faced, Jaime throws the boy, sobbing and twitching, down at the foot of the throne. There Viserys stands, next to his father. The laughter of the day is swallowed up by a chasm of silence.

The King curls a hand — almost tenderly — around Viserys' neck. From where he is sitting, Jon can see his long, yellowed nails curl against Viserys' skin. 'My gift,' says the King, in his horrible, scraping voice, 'to my son. What do dragons do best?' 

As the boy dies screaming before his soundless audience, wreathed in the wildfire’s green flames, Lyanna's hand clamps down violently, painfully, on Jon's arm. 

'I was afraid you were going to look away,' she tells him afterwards. 'If you had, he would have burned you too.' 

But Jon had already known this. Everyone in the Hall had known it, which is why not a single soul stood up in protest. Not one of them had a stake in a boy from nowhere and nothing. None had the courage; not even Jon's father, the mighty Rhaegar, who only stared straight ahead, ashen-faced. 

So as the boy burned, Jon focused on Viserys instead. Memorised the open, childlike awe on his uncle's face, reflected in the eerie glow of the wildfire. And for the first time in Jon's young life, he felt something other than fear for his uncle take root in his heart. And he knew its name.   
  


`

Having not been invited to the feast, Alayne is spared the ordeal, thank the Seven, though she is also the only one who weeps over the boy. 'His name's Denys,' she says, hiccoughing as Jon tries to wipe her red, blotchy face with his sleeve. 'His grandmother works in the kitchens. He's _sweet_.' 

As Alayne sobs over the boy whose name no one else bothered to learn, Jon glances over her head at his mother. Lyanna, normally so locked away within herself, is pacing up and down the length of her solar with a strange, blazing expression. He's seen glimpses of it before — a kindling spark that sometimes jumps behind her pale eyes when she thinks no one is looking — but never has he seen her wear it so openly, as if she were forged from it entirely. 

'I don't understand,' he says, as he gathers Alayne to him; she wraps her arms around his waist, and immediately the front of his tunic is sodden through. 'Why now? What does he have to prove?' 

Lyanna stops. Her gaze swivels over the children standing before her, but Jon knows his mother does not see them, not really. The grey searchlight of her eyes are looking for something else beyond them, something that lives in her own vast, unspoken planes of experience. 'I'm going to speak with your father,' she says, in a low voice. 'You two, stay here. Bar the door after me. No sneaking off tonight, do you hear me?' She doesn't bother waiting for their answer before striding out of the room, the heavy swish of her skirts echoing through the deadly quiet of the dark passageways outside. 

Jon begins unwinding Alayne's arms from around him; she lets out a noise of protest, and clings all the tighter. 'Hey,' he says, dropping a kiss onto Alayne's brow. 'You heard Mother. I've got to go get the door.' Jon goes to slide the bar against the door shut and turns back to her. Alayne's still standing by the empty hearth, shivering. He should light it to keep the chill away, but neither of them will be able to stomach the look of fire right now, so he brings a candle from his mother’s writing desk and sets it on the mantle between them.

'It's going to be okay,' he says quietly. 'Mother and Father will sort everything out, you'll see.' 

Just a girl, yet she leans back into him again with all the natural, instinctive force of a felled tree. She scrubs her face into his chest and looks up at him, eyes very red. 'Was he in a lot of pain?' she asks tremulously. 

He's never lied to her before, but now he does, so gently. 'No,' he says, 'The wildfire was very powerful. It was over in a moment.' 

'Was there anything of him left?' 

In the corner of Jon's eye, he sees the bulbous, blackened heap that once was Denys lift his head from the ground. Jon tucks a stray lock of Alayne's hair behind her ear. 'Nothing but dust.' 

For a moment, Alayne's whole face wobbles precariously, as if she's about to burst into tears again. But instead, she takes a deep inward breath, and something hard settles into her expression. 'Jon, you have to be careful,' she says urgently. ‘If the King is burning people again —’ 

‘Don’t worry about me,’ he says. But still she looks unconvinced, so he tries striking a lighter tone. ‘I know I’m not exactly his favourite person, but I can keep out of trouble.’ 

It doesn’t work. Alayne bristles. ‘And Denys was a troublemaker?’ she says. ‘He wasn’t anything. He was just a boy.’ 

‘You’re right, I know,’ says Jon. ‘I just don’t want you to be frightened. Nothing’s going to happen to us. I promise.’ 

‘And who is us?’ she replies, quick as a whip. ‘There is no _us_ for common folk like Denys, or for traitors like the Starks.’ 

It’s like the dreams all over again — the cold that blows through him, robbing the breath from his lungs and sense from his body. Leaving behind just that _thing_ , the knowledge he’s stuffed down in between his ribs, alongside all the shame and fear he’s ever felt his whole life. He feels the heaviness of it now plunge to the pit of his stomach. ‘Alayne,’ he says, 'Why are you bringing this up.’ 

'If the King is burning people again,' she says. Her voice sounds like it’s coming from very far away. But still not far enough. 'Jon, he burned your grandfather and your uncle. In the very same hall. We — you’re not safe.’ 

Something he hasn’t told Alayne: sometimes, in the dreams, he fights. Other times, he closes his eyes and lets the cold capture his blood, make a banner out of it on the white ground around him. _What you describe is snow_. 'That was different. The Starks committed treason.'

'Your mother is a Stark.'

'No,' Jon shakes his head. 'She became a Targaryen when she married my father. And that's what I am too.'

Alayne pulls herself out of his arms. 

'And you're certain that the King,' she says, in that slow, patronising and utterly _infuriating_ way she does sometimes, 'who is famously sound of mind, is going to see it that way?' 

Jon reaches up to grip the ledge of the mantle. 'Listen,’ he says, as evenly as he can. ‘I know you’re scared, but it’s not going to happen again. Father won't let it.'

'Really? What did he do to try to stop it from happening the first time?' 

'He was caught off guard! We all were!'

'Stop trying to make excuses for him!' Alayne yells. A deepening flush is spreading up her neck, her ears, up to her too-bright eyes. 'You're always defending Rhaegar, when he does _nothing_ for you. And no one says anything against the King, other than hope and pray he dies soon, so that Rhaegar can take the throne. But him standing by while the King murders people doesn't make him better. It just means that all you Targaryens are the _same_.'   
  


`

When his mother returns to her solar, she doesn't seem at all surprised to find the door unlocked, or Jon sitting alone, staring into the empty hearth. 

'Alayne in her bedroom,’ Lyanna says quietly, shutting the door behind her. ‘She's asleep now, and so should you. It's been a long day.' 

Jon nods, his head dropping to stare down at his clasped hands. Opens them to study the ridges of calluses forming along his palm, and the parts which are still red and raw. Distantly, he hears the sounds of his mother moving around him, the swish of her skirts as she goes to her desk, and her deep sigh as she runs a hand behind her neck, pressing against the tension there. 

With her back still to Jon, she says, tiredly, ‘Don’t fret. You two will reconcile soon enough.’ Jon turns around to look at her; Lyanna is drawing some of the pins from her hair and dropping them onto her desk, shaking the long mane of her dark hair loose. There’s nothing left that can shock him about today, but this act unnerves him nonetheless. ‘Stubborn creatures such as you both are bound to butt heads.’ 

‘But we never fight,’ says Jon. He wishes it didn’t come out sounding so forlorn, but there it is anyway. 

His mother leans over her desk and lets out a sharp exhalation, something too tired or too cynical to be a fully-fledged laugh. ‘Well then, you’d better get used to it,’ she says sharply. Then she straightens abruptly and stalks over to her side table, picks up a brass flagon of wine. ‘So. Are you going to bed,’ she says, gesturing it towards him. Drops of liquid slosh over the sides. ‘Or would you like one as well?’ 

Sitting on opposite sides of her desk, mother and son drink silently and steadily in the growing darkness of the solar, as the candles around them shrink into waxy pools. The doors to the balcony have been left flung open, and a strong sea breeze occasionally gusts in, blowing Lyanna’s hair around her like a saintly aura. Jon tries not to stare at those dishevelled tresses, which fall twisted and heavy around her shoulders. She looks like a wildling from the maester’s stories, instead of a princess. It suits her. Lyanna does not look at him at all, but empties her goblet each time with a single-minded determination, as if she cannot get on with her life until she has drunk every last drop of all the wine in the Seven Kingdoms. 

Jon wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. The act feels oddly heavy and clumsy, like he’s being pulled on by a string. ‘You know,’ he says. Is his voice too loud? ‘You know,’ he tries again, quieter. ‘I was thinking earlier when you came in, and I’ve made up my mind.’ 

‘Have you now,’ Lyanna says flatly, tipping her goblet forward to stare at the dregs at the bottom. 

‘We’ve — well, we’ve got to do something, haven’t we?’ he says, running a frustrated hand through his own curls. The words tumble out faster than his mind can keep up with. ‘Viserys running loose, and now this. We can’t just keep waiting around and hope that the King is just going to forget about the eggs, or find something new to obsess over, and not burn anyone else in the meantime.’

‘Or die. There’s always that,’ says Lyanna, before throwing back the last of her wine.

‘Yes,’ says Jon carefully. ‘That.’ His mother smiles wryly at him over the rim of her cup. ‘There are factions forming, aren’t there? Between those who side with the King and with Father. And this is only going to make it worse, isn’t it?’ 

Lyanna leans back into her chair, and shoots him an appraising look. ‘Depends what you consider worse,’ she says, her head rolling to the side.

Jon looks down into his own cup. ‘If Father should need me, when the time comes,’ he says solemnly, ‘I want to be there. To help.’ 

His mother does not move or say anything for what feels like an entire age. But perhaps he doesn’t want to hear what she has to say anyway — she hates Rhaegar, and most likely him too, sometimes, because he’s Rhaegar’s son. He’d like her approval, but Jon just can’t see any other way forward. He has to choose now, like Alayne said, and there is only one choice that leaves him on the other side of Viserys.

When she does finally speak, Lyanna only says, ‘Do you know what your father is, Jon.’ 

‘He’s the crown prince. The heir to the —’

Lyanna stops him with a wave of her hand. ‘That’s not what I meant. Do you know what Rhaegar is? What do you know of your father, what kind of man he is, truly?’

A hot flash of annoyance bursts in the back of his skull. ‘Hardly anything,’ Jon says, trying to bite back his bitterness. ‘But that’s not how I would’ve wanted it.’ 

Another strong rush of wind suddenly blows through the solar, ruffling the sheaves of paper on Lyanna’s desk and extinguishing the last of the candles. But there’s now enough bright moonlight in the room now for them to see each other clearly, maybe for the first time. 

When the gale tapers away, Lyanna says evenly, ‘You’re nearly grown. Do what you will. Throw your lot in with whomever you like. But listen to me when I tell you that he isn’t real.’ His mother holds herself as still as a pillar of salt, but Jon can feel that spark, that inherent wildness of her, roiling away beneath the surface. ‘Prince Rhaegar is a nice story that we tell ourselves. You might even mistake it for truth, as I once did, but the man himself will disappoint you. And when you finally realise this, you’ll find yourself less prepared than you should’ve been for the real cruelty that’s been right in front of you all along.’ 

Then she leans forward, and pushes the nearly empty flagon of wine towards Jon. ‘Finish this. I’m going to bed.’ 

They rise to their feet at the same time, both a bit unsteadily, chairs scraping noisily against the flagstones. Lyanna picks up her goblet and turns to leave, but Jon is suddenly struck by a need to keep her there somehow, even if just for another moment. They have never spoken to one another so plainly before, and he knows it will not happen again. ‘Mother,’ he says, almost without thinking. ‘Why did you stay, even after what the King did to your family? Weren’t you angry?’ 

This is not the most pressing question he could have asked her tonight, but somehow it’s become the most important. Or perhaps he’s always needed to know, but has been too afraid to ask until now. 

When Lyanna turns to him, for a brief second there’s an unfixed look in her eyes, as if she’s struggling to remember who it is she’s speaking to. 'I wanted to leave, and I would have,' she says carefully, 'but he wouldn't let me. Not with you, anyway.' 

'The King, you mean?'

'No,' Lyanna shakes her head. 'Your father. The dragon has three heads. Mustn’t forget.’ 

  
  


`

Once, a long time ago, Alayne had asked him where the weirwood were. 'We haven't got any here,' he replied, thrown by this unexpected question. 'It’s too far south. I didn't think they did in the Vale either.' 

'No,' she said, 'but they did in the Riverlands.'

'And when were you there?'

'When I was little,' she'd said, as if she were not already the smallest thing he'd ever seen in his entire life. But she had a look on her face that told him to leave it be, so he had. Instead he'd gone to the library and read all the books he could find on weirwood, godswood and where they could be found; then of the Old Gods and the First Men, which led him to the North. To the Starks. 

There, in a dusty, flaking tome, he found the branches of the shorn tree. His grandfather, Rickard, begat four children: Brandon the heir, who had been executed for treason alongside with his father. Benjen, the youngest, fell in the Trident. Eddard, the second son, married a Tully girl but died in the last year of the rebellion, his wife and young son following shortly after. And a daughter. Jon runs a finger over his mother's name. His own birth was not recorded. There was no need, as the House no longer exists. 

_I am the last of the Starks_ , he thought to himself for the first time, and a cold shudder ran down the top of his head to the base of his spine. 

`

Alayne does not speak to him the next day. And the day after, and the day after that. She will not be found in any of their usual places, and when he does see her it is only from afar, or surrounded by his mother’s retinue of ladies in passing, where she addresses him wreathed with smiles and kind courtesy. It drives him mad. He thinks he almost hates her for it at times, this silly game she plays. Or perhaps it’s himself he hates, for being shut out from it. 

But Alayne is not the only one to hide in plain sight. A thick, opaque curtain of silence falls over the Keep; the passageways and leisure gardens lie empty. The ladies stay in their solars, and the men keep their own counsel. Still the whispers find their way. Spoken so quietly and subtly, it’s as though they’re being passed through the water they drink, or breathed in from the very air itself. One could wake up from a mid-afternoon doze, and know immediately that there are rumours of Jaime Lannister seen riding hard eastwards, without the cloak of the Kingsguard around his shoulders. Or of Rhaegar meeting seditious nobles in the crypts, or Rhaegar breaking down the doors to his father’s cell and confronting the King, or Rhaegar releasing criminals from their dungeons and stirring them into an uprising… All these fanciful stories, Jon now recognises. Insubstantial as dust. 

Even his siblings can barely look one another in the eye, as though afraid of what they might find. Which is why Jon stops short on his way to the library (perhaps Alayne might be found amongst the shelves, and amenable to being coaxed out by a game of cyvasse) when he sees Egg and Daenerys on their knees, digging by the roots of a hornbeam tree in the sunken courtyard. 

‘He’s lost his dragon pendant,’ Daenerys explains. There’s dirt on her blue silk dress. She wipes her hair away from her face to look up at him properly, and streaks more across her cheek. ‘Egg says this is the last place he remembers wearing it.’

Egg moans, ‘Rhaenys is going to _kill_ me,’ and Daenerys places a comforting arm over his shoulders. 

‘Oh, it’s hardly worth your death,’ she says. ‘Just a bit of light torture. No more than an hour of listening to Rhaenys struggle through Six Maids in a Pool on the high harp, I think.’ And incredibly, she turns and smiles at Jon, willing him in on the joke. 

Jon huffs out a laugh, but Egg bursts into tears. ‘I’m going to burn, aren’t I,’ he sobs, shoulders twitching. ‘You’re not telling me the truth. I’m going to burn for this, I know it.’ 

Jon and Daenerys’ eyes meet over the top of Egg’s head. ‘Stop being such a goose,’ she chides gently. ‘No one gets burned for losing a trinket.’ 

_Yet Denys did for even less_ , thinks Jon. 

‘But that’s what the King said,’ Egg says, through his sniffling. ‘It’s what dragons _do_.’ 

‘And aren’t you a dragon too, Egg?’ replies Daenerys bracingly. ‘Don’t you know? Fire doesn’t hurt dragons.’ 

And suddenly, just like that, Jon realises he’s fucking sick of it. All this talk about fire and dragons, all the stupid goddamn posturing that doesn't mean a single goddamn thing, the silence so thick you can't _breathe_. 'There haven't been dragons in Westeros for millennia,' he practically spits out. 'It was wildfire, not dragonflame, that killed the boy. Anyone can burn anyone with wildfire.' 

Egg and Daenerys stare at him, Egg’s mouth agape. But Daenerys is looking up at his consideringly, as if beholding him for the first time. 

'I agree,’ Daenerys says thoughtfully, after a long pause. Next to her, Jon hears Egg lets out a long, shaking breath. 'Wildfire is a powerful weapon, but it’s also just a tool, like anything else. We are not Targaryens because of wildfire,’ she says, turning back to Egg and giving him a gentle squeeze. ‘It’s because we are chosen, and we are strong. Remember this, Egg.' 

`

By the fifth day, Jon is feeling more than a little pent up and hysterical, and quickly loses patience with each of his sparring partners at the training yards. But everyone’s concentration that afternoon is shot to hell, especially when Jaime Lannister strides into the yard, resplendent in the garb of the Kingsguard, his golden helm underneath his arm. He does not acknowledge any of them as he walks past, nor the murmuring that dogs his footsteps after.

One of the masters-at-arms spits in the sand as Jaime departs the yard, leaving a dark stain. ‘Murderer of wains,’ he mutters darkly. ‘Is that the kind of man fit to wear the white cloak these days?’ A gentle ripple of assent spreads through the yard, and Jon finally has enough. He throws his sword and shield onto the ground, and his hands fly to the leather straps of his breastplate, ripping them loose. 

‘Prince —’ one of the young squires he’s been sparring with, Edric, starts, but he snaps his mouth shut and takes two quick, leaping steps back as Jon hurls the breastplate into the dust as well. 

‘I’m done,’ Jon snarls, chest heaving. ‘I’m done with this.’ He rolls his shirtsleeves to his elbows, hoping to cool down, and braces himself against his knees. ‘Leave me,’ he orders. 

But Edric doesn’t move, his mouth opening and closing like a gasping fish. ‘But, Prince Jon,’ he stammers, ‘I—’ 

‘ _What_ ,’ Jon snaps, eyes still downcast. 

Edric lifts a hand, and just points. 

Jon straightens, and swings around. Viserys is loping into the yard, a hand wrapped around the hilt of a thin-bladed sword. ‘Finished already?’ he calls out. ‘Such a pity. I was hoping for a good hunt today.’ 

_That’s how he figures out how best to hurt you_. Jon rapidly schools his face into a blank expression, despite the relentless pounding of his heart. His eyes dart to his discarded sword and shield on the ground, but it’s too late. Much too late. 

‘So quiet,’ says Viserys. He stops three paces in front of Jon, and that slow razorcut of a grin begins pulling at his mouth. ‘Always so quiet, except when you’re spouting obscenities at your superiors. Why is that, Jon?’ Viserys languidly raises the sword, and points its blade into the middle of Jon’s chest. ‘Do you think yourself better than the son of the King? Or are you deaf as you are mute?’ 

The fury that’s been building and building inside Jon throws its head back, and sings its dark song. ‘I might think better of him, if I thought he deserved it,’ Jon bites out, shaking with something more than anger. No, for the first time in his life, he’s _thrilled_ to see Viserys. ‘As it currently stands, it’s best if I keep my thoughts to myself.’ 

Viserys’ eyes widen with delight. ‘So the beast does speak,’ he crows, gesturing to Jon with his sword in mock amazement. ‘Seven hells, we ought to put this one in a cage, and make him perform more tricks for the amusement of the King!’ 

‘The cage is an excellent idea,’ Jon answers levelly, ‘as the King wouldn’t be much amused by what I would do to you outside of it.’ 

That familiar darkness falls behind Viserys’ eyes, but there’s a new simmering frustration there, too. Because he never thinks things through, Jon realises. That’s what Jaime was trying to tell him, that day in the training yard. His uncle only knows how to throw the first blow, but never in his life has he had to follow through on anything. As much as he goads Jon for it, he’s unprepared for his prey to speak back. Jon silently revels in this moment. He ought to, as it might be his last. But until then, he feels nothing but this deadly calm, hears nothing but the deep draw of his own breath. 

Then suddenly — he feels its gentle tug on his consciousness, before he actually sees it. The bright head of copper entering the cloisters that ring the perimeter of the yards. She’s at the back of Lyanna’s cortege as usual, in a dress of spring silk, hands clasped in front of her and eyes staring straight ahead like a true highborn lady. 

Immediately the fear returns, and drowns him entirely. 

The rushing of his own blood thunders in his ears. _Don’t look my way_ , he thinks, praying desperately to the old gods and the new gods, to anything that might be listening. _Please, please don’t look my way. Don’t call out to me. Please just keep walking. Please forget you ever knew me._

But it’s too late. Viserys notices the dart of Jon’s eyes, swivels around and follows it with his own. And Jon does not have to see Viserys’ face to feel how the surprise, then the understanding, dawns. The frisson that runs down his uncle’s frame, the thrill he feels to have finally cracked him. 

‘Your mother’s pet is very lovely,’ says Viserys quietly, thoughtfully. Slowly he drags his eyes away from Alayne to look back at Jon. ‘One day she’ll be a woman. But maybe I don’t want to wait that long.’ He tilts his head, and takes a slow step towards Jon, as if approaching a cornered animal. ‘Maybe I want to know all her secrets now.’ His violet eyes harden into black, pitiless stones. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Viserys hisses. ‘I’ll prise them out of her one by one, I promise, and the first will be how she sounds when she screams —’ 

But what Alayne might’ve screamed at Viserys’ hands, no one will ever know, as Jon lunges and drives his shoulder into Viserys’ abdomen as hard as he can, hurling them both into the dirt. Beneath him Viserys is gasping, winded, tries to push him off with his outstretched arms but Jon only rears up and grabs him by the collar of his tunic and punches him clean across the mouth. He feels the skin split beneath his fist, and the hot spill of blood on his knuckles. Jon decides he wants to live in that fucking moment forever so he does it again and again, everything’s a blur, someone’s screaming but no one dares come near. There’s only so much time — Jon might be quicker and have the advantage of surprise, but Viserys is still older and stronger. Viserys will get back up. And he does, with a sharp knee to Jon’s stomach, and suddenly it’s Jon whose head is hitting the ground. Immediately Viserys has rolled atop him and gets him pinned, one hand on his throat and another fumbling for his sword, which was thrown into the dust beside them, but Jon beats him to it, mustering just enough strength to knock it out of Viserys’ reach. 

Viserys whips his head around to where the sword now lay, and hesitates for only a moment before he returns his attention to Jon, lip curling. His other hand goes to Jon’s throat, squeezing like a vice, and it’s there, that look, the same look he had when Denys burned, and when he ground the maester’s skull into the edge of the table, and it’s just as Jaime said, he now knows Viserys completely. Inside and out. Just another stupid, cruel, weak man. Nothing to be scared of. He does not care what Viserys sees in him. Black, pulsating dots begin blotting out his vision. Good. Why should Viserys’ face to be the last thing he sees, when there exists the sea and the sky and the way the Keep glows at dusk and Alayne laughing — 

An almighty commotion, before enough people finally manage to get their arms around Viserys and pull him off. For a moment there’s nothing but the cold and the reeling blue heavens above, and Jaime Lannister looking down at him, saying something to him over and over again. _Breathe hey kid c’mon breathe everything’s okay now breathe_. Then all of a sudden, it feels like something in his chest kicks open its doors, and he’s gulping down desperate lungfuls of air. Every breath sears on the way down. It’s the most glorious thing he’s ever tasted. 

‘You’re okay, everything’s okay,’ Jaime keeps saying, as he flings Jon’s arm around his shoulder. ‘Easy does it.’ He’s too weak to protest, so he lets Jaime pull him to his feet and stagger him out of the yards. The crowd that had formed parts to let them through with a low hush, their faces running together in his blurred vision like a field of swaying corn.

He finally catches sight of her when they pass the cloisters. Behind Alayne, his mother stands stiffly, one hand on the young girl's shoulder, as if holding her back. Closer still, he can see the snow-whites peaks of her knuckles against the pale green of Alayne's dress. 

But it's Alayne's eyes that he's drawn into, before Jaime hauls him away – alive and blazing, blue like the heart of a true flame. 

`

A few days later, he finds her atop the rookery, staring out over the sea. Above, a murmur of starlings wheel through the air in strange, rhythmic formations. 

'They're trying to figure out where they're meant to go,' Alayne says without turning around, as he approaches her place at the ramparts. 'Their species is meant to go south in the winter, but summer has lasted so long. They've forgotten.' 

Jon leans his crossed arms against the wall and looks up, brows furrowed against the sun. 'I'm sorry about what happened to Denys,' he says. ‘I’m sorry about — all of it.’ 

Alayne shrugs wordlessly, and still does not look at him. She keeps her gaze trained on the birds, as though trying to divine some secret from their movements. 

He sighs, and pulls his collar away from his neck distractedly. The bruising there is still angry and mottled. 'Do you not want me to be a Targaryen?’ he asks. ‘Is that what this is?’ 

'I thought you said you weren't a dragon.' 

Jon drags a hand across his mouth. 'Then what am I meant for, Alayne?' he asks roughly. The anger in his voice is real, but so is the question. ‘Because it feels like everyone in this blasted Keep has got some very definite ideas on this subject that I’m not privy to. Am I meant to be a traitor, a coward? A knight? A prince in one of your stories?’ Finally she spins around to face him, her entire body tense and trembling, like a bowstring. It puts an arrow through his heart. ‘But you’re cleverer than all of them put together,’ he forges on, ‘and you _know_ this. So why don’t you tell me who you think I’m meant to be?’ 

It comes rushing out of her, as though this were the question she’s been waiting to hear from him all her life. 'Better,’ she says. ‘Just — be better. Call yourself whatever you want, I don't care. But you have to be better than all of them. Promise me.' 

She’s still shaking when he reaches over and takes her hand. If they were in one of Alayne’s stories, he’d be sinking onto a knee, and she would be laying the side of a sword blade on his shoulders. This will do for now. 'I'll try,’ he promises. ‘I really will, if that’s what you want from me.’ 

He watches her spin through many emotions at once: relief, fear, doubt. Sees her choose happiness out of all of them as her last, best defence. In response, Alayne hefts his arm around her shoulders, and nestles her head back into the crook of his shoulder, keeping his hand firmly intertwined with hers. And Jon feels his entire self immediately light up from the inside with joy, with calm. That is how it feels, what she gives him, every time. Alayne turns up her face to consider the birds again. The sun is bright and the day is warm, but the wind blows cold. 'Do you think winter is finally coming?' she says, easy as anything. 

'It's got to at some point, hasn't it?' Jon says.

'I don't know if I've ever even been truly cold before,’ Alayne murmurs. ‘I wonder what that'll feel like.' 

Viserys and the King are out for blood, and more certainly will be shed. There is no end to the dark clouds gathering over the Keep. But she says it with a soft note of awe, as though life still has some great gifts in store for her yet. 

'Maybe it'll even snow,’ Jon says. He angles his head to hers, grinning. ‘We can throw snowballs at Rhaenys until she cries to the septa.' 

Alayne laughs, and presses more closely into him. 'You're horrible.' 

'I know,’ he replies into the bright crown of hair at her temple. ‘Sorry, that's not better, is it.' 

She only smiles. Drops a kiss onto their clasped hands. 

'I'll allow it,’ she says. 

  
  


`

  
  


_'Georgia, Georgia, I love your son_

_When he gets older, he might be the one_

_He might be the one.'_

– Phoebe Bridgers 


End file.
